Leafs have been down this road before

If the Toronto Maple Leafs’ script through three games this season seems eerily familiar, you’re not mistaken.

Toronto is 3-0-0 to start the 2011-12 season. The Leafs were 3-0-0 at the start of the 2010-11 season. Phil Kessel started the 2010-11 season with seven goals in eight games. The right winger has five goals and eight points through this season’s first three games.

The Leafs went on to win their fourth game last season, and then the wheels fell completely off, for both the team, which went 1-8-3 in its next 12 games, and its best offensive player — after a seven-goal October, Kessel had three goals in November.

So, can Toronto avoid falling into another season-killing slump? As always, with the Leafs, it’s another round of ifs:

1. If Kessel can abandon his streaky tendencies
It would be nice if it felt like Kessel knew what he was doing to be successful. Asked about his stellar early-season form after the Leafs’ 3-2 win over Calgary on Saturday, he said, “They’re just going in.” That, however, should have been last year’s answer.

At the beginning of the 2010-11 season, Kessel was playing the same game he always had: skate up the ice; take a low percentage wrist shot; hope for the best. A couple of weeks into the season, defences adjust to that play. They get in Kessel’s face and make the percentage of his long shots even lower.

It seems that he has readjusted. Kessel has started going to the net; he’s not always thinking shoot-first; and he has been almost as good off the puck as he has been on it. To be fair, three games, two weak defences and the comedy roadshow that is the Calgary Flames. Kessel and the Leafs won’t see a legitimate contender until Game 6, next Thursday in Boston.

2. If Dion Phaneuf and Mike Komisarek don’t drift
When Mike Komisarek and Francois Beauchemin signed in Toronto, Brian Burke thought he had one of the best defences in the East. It didn’t work out. When he got Dion Phaneuf, he envisioned a captain and leader on and off the ice. The former took a lot longer to develop than expected.

But through three games, Phaneuf and Komisarek have been the Phaneuf and Komisarek of old. Phaneuf has picked up right where he left off last season, barreling into the offensive zone and creating good chances. He isn’t whipping the puck at the net with reckless abandon — in fact, on the power play, he should probably shoot it a bit more.

And after two injury-marred seasons in Toronto, Komisarek finally has his timing back, and he is doing exactly what defensive defencemen have to do: get the puck out of the zone and block a lot of shots (he got in front of five on Saturday).

If these two can stay the course, it would go a long way to fixing an issue that has plagued the Leafs since the lockout.

3. If James Reimer can keep hitting the reset button
Reimer let in two quick goals at the start of the game against the Flames, and then head coach Ron Wilson called a 30-second timeout. Reimer skated to the bench, skated back, the game resumed, and then he shut the door. Reimer is doing something that Vesa Toskala and Jonas Gustavsson could not, nor J-S Giguere after his groin collapsed: he gives the Leafs a chance to win.

It wasn’t as through Calgary didn’t have scoring chances on Saturday. They had plenty after the first period goals by Curtis Glencross and Scott Hannan. But Reimer was lights out the rest of the way, and the Leafs seemed to feed off of his big plays in net.

So, how did he feel after putting the team in an early hole?

“To tell you the truth, when you get off to a start like that, there’s just a whole whack of negative thoughts piling in,” he said after the game.

“It’s your job as a goaltender, as a professional athlete, to channel that to block that out, to shoo those thoughts out as quick as you can. I was telling myself, ‘There’s not much you can do. Just forget about it and make that next save. Slowly but surely you make that next save. Then the period’s over and you can fully regroup. … You just have to stay mentally tough and hope your team can battle back for you.”

A lot of questions about the Leafs’ potential success this season have been based on whether or not Reimer can replicate his strong play from the second half of last season. So far, he still seems to have the mental edge, something the Leafs have not had between the pipes since pre-lockout Ed Belfour.